U.S. space program turns to Russian engines for boost

WASHINGTON — Sometime early next year, a new U.S. rocket is expected to rise from the sandy shores of eastern Virginia.

Built by Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., and dubbed Antares — for the bright star of the same name — the rocket represents NASA's latest attempt to break Russia's dominance of the global launch business.

The goal of the test flight is to see whether Antares can reach orbit, a steppingstone toward its ultimate mission of ferrying cargo to the International Space Station. That is a job principally handled by Russia since NASA retired the space shuttle last year.

But even if the Orbital launch is a success, it won't mean NASA will have escaped Moscow's orbit. For the twin engines powering Antares won't be American originals; instead, they are derived from the decades-old, and now defunct, Soviet moon program.

The irony highlights what some say is a critical failure of U.S. space policy: Only two American companies — Lockheed Martin and SpaceX — build the type of high-performance, liquid-fuel rocket engines that are critical to space missions. And they don't sell to rivals.

As a result, U.S. space companies big and small are forced to turn to Russia. Even Boeing — whose Atlas V rocket is a workhorse for the Pentagon and so reliable that NASA is hoping it can carry astronauts to the station in a few years — uses Russian-built engines.

"The problem goes beyond Orbital," said John Logsdon, a space expert at George Washington University. "The problem is that we [Americans] are still not investing in advanced liquid-propulsion technology."

Others, however, say there's little economic justification for a made-in-the-U.S.A. rocket engine. In an era of increasing globalization, they say, U.S. companies should focus on their strengths — designing and assembling rockets and equipping them with the avionics necessary for successful orbital flights — and let other countries provide the engines.

"We know the world is globalizing," said Jay Gullish of Futron, an aerospace-analysis company. "It benefits everyone to use things that are priced right and do the job."

The story of how Soviet engines ended up in American rockets begins in what is now Russia — long before globalization was an economic buzzword.

During the 1960s, Soviet engineers developed a new line of engines, known as the NK-33s, that were part of the U.S.S.R.'s secret program to blast cosmonauts to the moon. But the rockets powered by the NK-33s failed on four consecutive attempts — because of engineering problems independent of the engines — and Soviet leaders ultimately canceled the program.

Dozens of the engines survived, however, and in the mid-1990s the U.S. company Aerojet bought about 40 of them. Aerojet since has upgraded the engines and sold them to Orbital.

The decision to buy those engines — rather than seeking them in the U.S. — was one of simple economics, said Orbital officials. NASA is paying the company $288 million to build a rocket and capsule that can reach the station — a relative bargain in the space world, where projects routinely cost billions of dollars.

"You can't just go and [easily] buy an engine of that class," said Kurt Eberly, Antares deputy project director, who described the U.S. rocket-engine business as a "weakness" in the overall space industry.

The situation has worried U.S. officials enough that in 2009 the White House highlighted the problem in a 14-page letter to congressional leaders. It described the U.S. rocket-engine business as "under significant stress" in part because of "low demand" for its product.

The lack of demand is reflected in launch statistics. From 2002 to 2011, the U.S. had 191 successful orbital launches; a distant second to Russia's 255 launches, according to new figures compiled by Futron. (China was third with 87).

A second problem, the White House concluded, is that a "substantial fraction" of U.S. rocket companies already use cheaper foreign engines — giving U.S. companies even less of a reason to build them.

"While demand for U.S. launch vehicles is low, demand for production of U.S. propulsion systems is even more constrained," the letter noted. "Given this situation, most U.S. propulsion providers seem to have little incentive for investing in new capabilities and technologies."

That's a problem, said Mike Gold, a top executive with Bigelow Aerospace of Nevada.

"Foreign collaboration is commendable. Foreign dependence is deplorable," said Gold, whose company is developing commercial space stations. "The U.S. industrial base needs to take a hard look in the mirror and ensure we maintain critical domestic capabilities in the space arena — both for economic reasons and for national security."